


Lunar Requiem

by Guardian Of The Lotus (DistantStorm)



Series: Fictober 2019 [29]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Complicated relationship dynamics, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, Mild Conflict of Interest, Nightmares, Shadowkeep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 04:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21220370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistantStorm/pseuds/Guardian%20Of%20The%20Lotus
Summary: Miyu returns home following the establishment of a Landing Zone on the Lunar surface. Zavala wants the details, but he won't get them from her.Written for day 29 of the Fictober 2019 Challenge on Tumblr: "I'm doing this for you."





	Lunar Requiem

Miyu hands Zavala a report, ignoring the way his eyes soften as he takes it from her. She stands across the desk from him, rather than a table or a training arena. Her Ghost hangs over her shoulder, but he hangs close. She does not shift her feet impatiently like she might if it were the average mission or any other random day.

“This is-” He furrows his brows as if not sure what to say. Formality is strange between them now. “Good work, Miyu.”

She nods.

“But, usually your reports have a bit more…” He looks up at her. “Detail.”

“Just the facts, Commander,” Miyu answers, soft, but businesslike. Her eyes are hard. The skin beneath her eyes is a lilac color, it’s been two days since she’s been home and longer since she’s slept. Miyu is an expert on the Hive. The Moon is not a stranger to her. It only made sense that she’d go, and go immediately.

“What is going on up there?”

“What I said in my report,” She pushes back. “They’re disorganized. Scattered.” Tamashii twitches, uncomfortable, flinching. She looks up to him, but her face does not change. Instead, she reaches a hand out, pulling him closer, to rest on her plated shoulder. “Eris is… Eris. She’s trying. The situation is grating on her.” On everyone, Miyu thinks and Tamashii wordlessly agrees.

Zavala sets her report aside. “Off the record,” He begins.

“Absolutely not.”

“Miyu, I need to know.”

“I have not withheld any information that would negatively impact our efforts on Luna. The details are irrelevant. I promise.” She crosses her arms - a textbook display of discomfort.

Zavala folds his hands on the desk. “I wish to help you.”

“I know,” She sighs. “But, I’m doing this for you.”

He shakes his head. “There is no need. I am the Vanguard Commander, I-”

Miyu raises her voice - not loud, never loud - even and strong and blunt. “You are more than that to me.” She tilts her head. “What have they told you?”

“Nothing.”

“For good reason. We don't know much, yet.” She tilts her head. “Is there anything else you need from me?”

“I-” Zavala makes a sound that isn’t quite a scoff, but insinuates he isn’t thrilled but will not push. “Ikora insists I get some rest at some point. See you at home?”

She nods. “Of course." Some of the tension seeps from her shoulders. "I fear I might be asleep by the time you get in, though. Wake me up.”

“I’d prefer to let you sleep,” He tells her, tilting his head to evaluate her, her dirty armor, matted hair, the way her eyes are both distant and hard but terribly sad. He sees a soldier in her and he finds he doesn't like it one bit.

She nods, unwilling to fight with him, and for that Zavala is relieved. “Just,” She closes her eyes, sees shadowy shapes in red. Eyes, watching her. Hears voices she remembers. Twitches. He wants to reach for her but doesn’t, she can tell by the way he clenches his fist. “Just hold me. Please. When you come in.”

“I promise. Are you sure you don’t…”

“I’m sure, Zavala.”

-/

She’s talking in her sleep when he arrives home, brows pulled tightly together, forehead wrinkled, those dark circles beneath her eyes even more pronounced. Her armor is gone. Miyu is clothed only in a shirt he recognizes as having been taken from the top of his worn laundry, legs bare, the bedcovers kicked away.

Scent is anchoring, he knows that from experience. He closes his eyes and breathes in, then out. She’s hiding how poorly she’s taken things, or at least trying to. It appears her Ghost is doing nothing of the sort, outwardly displaying signs of distress, considering the way he can see the dulled optic illuminating the space over her chest, beneath his undershirt. She’s curled into a ball, hands cradling him over the fabric, subconsciously trying to provide protection or comfort, he can’t tell which. Perhaps both.

When she cries out, he approaches cautiously.

“Miyu.”

She moans something, and Tamashii quakes. Whatever it is, it frightens her. "No," She's murmuring. "You're dead. You're not… I'm _sorry._ I'm sorry I couldn't… No._ No!_ Please, leave us alone. You're already dead… I can't… no Ghost. Not mine," She jerks, screaming, _"Not mine!"_

Zavala heaves her up from the bed and into his arms without a second thought. She flails, one of her knee hitting his jaw, but he holds steady, sitting on the edge of the bed and murmuring things against her temple, waiting for her to calm or wake or both. Tamashii peers out cautiously from under her(his) shirt. 

“That wasn’t the best way,” He says to the Commander.

Zavala hums, lips pressed to Miyu’s hairline. “She asked me to hold her. I think this was why,” He tells the Ghost. “You can go back, if need be.”

He twitches, flicking his shell. “I just need her close, for now.” It sounds apologetic.

“Phasing is-”

“We Ghosts are not terribly tactile by nature, I suppose, but Miyu has always found touch to be soothing. Centuries of that and I was bound to catch on as well.”

Zavala removes the hand holding Miyu’s arm at her side. It hasn’t flinched, trying to strike out at unseeable aggressors (or Zavala) in a moment. He presses his thumb against Tamashi’s top fin, fondly. “I was going to say that it is unnecessary. I do not think to assume I know what she needs more than you.”

Miyu’s hand presses over her heart, over her Ghost’s rounded shell when he slips back beneath the worn cotton. She looks up at him with teary eyes, having awakened at some point during their conversation. “I’m sorry,” She whispers. “I think I kicked you.”

“No harm done.” He presses his lips to her forehead. “I’m going to lay you down while I change. Only for a moment, okay?”

“Okay.”

She doesn’t pull up the covers, but she does whisper softly to her Ghost, stroking his shell through the shirt she’s wearing. It takes a moment, but he realizes that she’s humming.

“He couldn’t understand when we were trying to leave the City,” She says, when Zavala watches her in the doorway with an unendingly gentle look upon his face. “I kept trying to convince him to phase, but he kept trying to worm his way into my chest piece, so finally, I let him.” She blinks tiredly at her partner, the human one. “When I was newly risen, I used to be afraid that when he phased I wouldn’t see him again, that he was gone, or something.” She laughs, but it's self depreciating at best. “It’s stupid. Unsafe, for sure.” Miyu slides against Zavala as he slips between the sheets and opens his arms. “But it felt better. And he could feel my heartbeat. Everything - our senses were so dull when the Light was gone,” She recalls. “It was instinctive, to react like that. Even now it stays.”

“Adelaide was phased into me. It was-” Zavala sighs. “I knew she was there, I could hear her, in my mind, but-”

“Tactile,” Miyu interrupts, her hand sliding over his shoulder. “It’s different. Even if your Ghost isn’t tactile.”

“Especially with the Light gone,” He concedes. They fall silent again, the subject change only mildly effective. Finally, Zavala whispers into the darkness of the room, sadly, “Ikora told me.”

Miyu sighs. “I hoped she wouldn’t, but I figured she would.”

“Did you recognize any of them?” He asks, of the nightmares - the phantoms - of their fallen kin.

“Yes.”

He tucks her head under his chin. “I am sorry to have put you through that.”

“It’s what we do,” Miyu whimpers into his skin. “I don’t-” She knows he can feel when her tears fall, but she speaks anyway. “I just wish I knew what they were, whether or not this helped any of them rest.”

“Ikora isn’t certain, but,” Zavala runs his hand down her back, curls his fingers into the scar she’d received from a Hive Knight months before, “Anything you do to thwart our enemies should help the dead rest easier.”

She hums. “And you?”

“Me?”

“Does that help you come to terms with it?”

“Sometimes,” He supposes, but admits, “Others, I don’t think anything ever will.”

Silence falls over them again, uneasy, thrumming with anxiety. They hold each other closer.

"Did you see it?" He asks her.

Miyu pulls back, looking into his eyes. She knows what he's talking about. "I did. Eris showed me. Have you?"

"Ikora worries I would be-" He trails off. "Eris is crowded by those she cared for who perished. I would…" He swallows hard.

"I don't think that's wrong," Miyu agrees."These phantoms… I know why they're there, but I can't help but feel like they're sentient. Souls that can't move past this plane. They pray on our goodness, on our hearts." She looks up to him. "Please don't go there. Not unless you have to."

"I cannot promise that," He murmurs.

Miyu sighs. "Then, at least," She presses her lips to his forehead. "If the day comes, let me come with you. I know you won't forgive yourself and won't try to convince you otherwise." Her fingers cup his cheeks, pinky fingers curled along his jawline. "I just want to be there to lean on, if you need me. To help you through it."

He kisses her. It burns, not like the fire of her Light, but like something far more rare, exceedingly precious. Something that is created without the Traveler's assistance. It builds slowly but without signs of stopping. Tamashii seems to sink into her skin, understanding the change in tone.

"I love you," Zavala whispers, between drags of his teeth and tongue across her lower lip. She cries openly, tears pouring down her face, and he rolls her beneath him. There's moisture on his face as well.

"I love you, too," Miyu gasps in reply, parting her legs and letting him shuck the shirt away from her body so that they can be skin to skin, as close as possibly can be allowed.

"I'm afraid," He admits, after their arduous love-making, tucking his head into the crevice where her neck meets her shoulder. "A second collapse could-" He huffs into her skin and they tremble against each other.

"We'll figure this out," Miyu promises. He lifts his head to look at her. "We will. We're Guardians. We won't let this beat us."

He hugs her tight enough to hurt, and she lets him, because the pain feels better than the numbness and screaming she still hears in her mind. "Please be right," He whispers.

She hopes she is with every atom of her being.


End file.
